Dodgers’ Kershaw linked to the NASA Pluto mission

Clayton Kershaw may be the best pitcher on the planet, but his great uncle actually discovered another planet. Kershaw’s great uncle Clyde Tombaugh — the man who discovered the (dwarf) planet Pluto in 1930 — has been in the news recently.

While Tombaugh first observed the planet from Earth, on Wednesday scientists received the first ever close-up images of Pluto as the unmanned spacecraft in NASA’s New Horizons mission passed by it.

Article continues below ...

Kershaw actually went on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2013 and spoke about his great uncle Tombaugh. He joked (or was he serious?) about the family’s outrage at the fact that the scientific community demoted Pluto from its longtime status as a planet to a dwarf planet. Per Yahoo Sports, he said:

“It’s been a huge problem in the Kershaw-Tombaugh side of the family for years. … They took it away from us.”

Maybe 2015 will be a year of redemption for the Kershaw-Tombaugh family.